Zombie Army 4: Dead War | Xbox One Review

March 23, 2020 Josh Ehresmann

In the current flux of horde-based shooters, is there room for another that can separate from the rest? I love playing horde-based shooters ever since I played Left 4 Dead way back in the early 2000’s. Zombie Army 4: Dead War comes from Rebellion. According to the soldiers in game, they called The Dead War the time after Hitler was killed in the last trilogy. A majority of the small cutscenes in the game are following the lead character Karl Fairburne around Europe trying to kill the zombie outbreak.

Equipping to Kill Some Nazi Zombies

Dead War is a 3rd person shooter that is both single player and co-op. While you can play by yourself, it’s meant to be played in groups of up to four players. One of the biggest parts of Zombie Army 4 is the X-ray kills that are back from Sniper Elite 4, so there are lots of awesome zombie kills in slow mo. Playing the game, you get to choose between several different main characters which are Karl Fairburne, Boris, Shola, and Jun. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses, so it’s best to read through all of them and decide which one will benefit your playstyle.

Also, every player will have access to 3 weapon slots. In the first slot they have a sniper rifle, the second slot is a mix of automatic guns and shotguns, and the third slot is a pistol. There is also the ability to carry grenades and meds. Along the way while playing through the game, players will have the ability to find upgrades for their weapons. They can add more damage, have better stability, or even explosive and electric bullets.

The upgrades are nice since the game is very limiting on the amount of ammo your character can carry. Levels are all somewhat the same idea: get into the game, fight off basic rounds, then find various switches around the map to open the door to the main area. Each level also introduces new zombies to help keep the game fresh. Some of the great ones are the flamethrower zombie, machine gun zombie, metal giant, supernatural sniper, necromancer, and zombie shark, just to name a few of them.

Co-op with Friends

With all Zombie Army 4 has to offer, it runs into a lot of issues. The game can get caught up on itself and lag badly at times. Cutscenes run nice, as does the x-ray camera. But when it switches back to gameplay, sometimes you can run into performance issues. One of my biggest gripes with Dead War is the low amounts of ammo in the game. I feel at this point, if you have a pistol, they should have unlimited ammo since they don’t do crazy amounts of damage. There are plenty of times where my character will get stuck on a part of the map, or will teleport to an area that I can’t get out of, and have to restart an entire area because of it.

Zombie Army 4: Dead War is a great co-op game to play with friends and randoms online. I would recommend people pick it up on a sale if they can. I would get this if you want to play multiplayer or co-op, since by yourself the game can be very hard. Unless you want to have a moment of rage, then it’s plenty good. The game has 9 missions, and each of those are broken down into 4 chapters. So there is a lot of gameplay, and the dev is already committed to making more DLC and adding new weapons. If you like horde-based games, you will love this. And if you love the Sniper Elite series, you will feel right at home playing this. X-ray kills are worth it alone. If you’re looking to murder some zombies and have a fun time with friends, pick this one up.

To hear me talk more about Zombie Army 4: Dead War, be sure to listen to Episode 284 of The Gaming Outsider Podcast around the 1:19:00 time stamp.

This review is based on an Xbox One copy fo Zombie Army 4: Dead War provided by Evolve PR for coverage purposes. It is also available on PlayStation 4 and Windows PC.